


how to breathe

by Nyxierose



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-15 15:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18672094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: 31 Garcy ficlets for the 31 Day Selfcare Fic Challenge created by @to-hell-with-oblivion on tumblr. Mostly sweet, mostly post-whatever.





	1. alone

**Author's Note:**

> Because what I REALLY needed right now was a fic challenge. I'm gonna try to get this done, but we'll see...

She wanders sometimes. Every once in a while, when the flashbacks get bad and this haunted house and her haunted partner are too much, Lucy allows herself afternoons of freedom. A few hours untraceable, little adventures in an outside world she is still re-learning a year and a half after she got her life back, to steady herself.

She's not a complete idiot about it. She's got her phone on her, though she's unlikely to check it at any point, and a taser in her purse because that was a compromise against her lover's generally understandable paranoia. From her perspective, standard-issue pepper spray was _fine_ , but Flynn is on occasion more stubborn than she is and she caved. She's not entirely sure how it works, if the clichés about knowing stuff like that in the moment one actually needs to are true, but she doubts she'll find out.

Sometimes, on these afternoons of needing to be somewhere else, she goes to a museum. Other days, like today, she picks a coffee shop she hasn't been to before. Those are countless, and she's slowly making a list of ones she likes and would go back to if she happened to be in that general area for something else. She takes notes of which have good tea selections, which have good people-watching, and which rare few have both.

Today's is one of the best kind. Peppermint green tea in hand, she picks a table in a corner and allows herself a few minutes to be still before she starts working on her project.

She can't remember why she started working on the journal on these afternoons. She has three more years before she needs to finish it, plenty of time, and she wants to do it right. Working on it at home feels _wrong_ somehow, like she might alter fate with any wrong word choice. Plus, the pestering. She is _not_ working on something so sacred with the background noise of Flynn getting unusually worried - unusually worried for _him_ , which would be smothering from anyone else but she's known the man long enough and been entwined with him long enough that she can deal - and/or adding unsolicited commentary. Sometimes, but not always, both of those issues at once. She tried this exactly once and ended up tearing out a page and throwing it at him, and that seems like a sign that she shouldn't try again.

So instead she writes the journal in every coffee shop in San Francisco, using her own instincts to guide what matters. She knows a few things need to be in a specific order, but for the most part she allows things to flow as they will.

Today, because she can, she writes about her mental episodes.

_I go through a lot. So do you, but you know how you handle pain both physical and emotional. You need to handle mine differently._

_Be gentle. Give me space when I ask for it - that doesn't happen much, I promise - and let me into yours when that helps more._

_I'm showing you how to save the world by writing this, but I think I'm also showing you how to love me._

Maybe it's a little risky, Lucy thinks as she finishes, but it's worth it.

She has another cup of tea, because she needs an excuse to listen to a dramatic recap of why one of the baristas' most recent ex-girlfriend is an ex - and while Lucy has never felt the need to dye her hair purple or get a bunch of flowers tattooed on her body, and she's likely twice the age of this girl, she relates - and then decides to go home. She's calmer now, she'll be fine.

She needs to wander sometimes, but she always comes back after a few hours.


	2. puzzles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little divergent from the prompt today, but I think it still kinda fits.

After every mission, he undoes her hair.

The first time it happened was unplanned. They got back in relatively good condition - if Flynn has one goal in improving the team dynamic, it's convincing the others that None Of Us Got Shot counts as a win - and he found her several hours later, curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor and trying to figure out where one damn hairpin was in the colossal mess of a hairsprayed-to-hell beehive she'd thought was appropriate at the start of that day. Lucy does not admit weakness easily, and he suspects the only reason she let him help was because she'd given up.

Since then, it's become a routine. If they go on a mission where she has to do anything complicated to herself to blend in, he helps her undo it when they get home.

They're finding strange intimacies as they evolve. He's still wary of physical contact in their own timeline, still hesitant when she reaches out, but the ritual is an exception. It is easier for him to do it than anyone else, somehow - easier for her to let him see the vulnerabilities he already knows about than for her to try to let someone else in.

It steadies him too, though he has a much harder time admitting it.

Tonight, there are projects. 1880s high society means both fancy hair and a corset, another detail Lucy has decided is easier to remove with his help. The routine has been established long enough to be planned for, a small portion of her regular wardrobe drifting into the bottom drawer of his dresser because she's much happier in an oversized sweater and leggings, and-

"There," he murmurs as the corset falls from her body. He turns his head at the right moment, gives her space to shed the rest of her layers and deal with what needs dealt with before they attempt the mess that is her hair, and-

"I owe you," she says as she taps his shoulder. Sweater and leggings, check, but extremely messy bun that did _not_ look like that a few hours ago and she is still in some kind of visible pain.

"Least I can do."

"And a lot more than I'd ever ask."

"Lucy, you don't-"

"You can be awkward once twenty sharp objects are no longer somewhere near my head," she laughs. "Please?"

Routine, he thinks as he moves to stand behind her. Getting easier to find said sharp objects, efficient removal as her hair starts to fall. He wonders sometimes if she realizes how beautiful she is, or how much he values what complexities she allows him. No one else gets this version of her, and somehow he does, and-

The last pin falls, and he lets his hand linger on her head for an unnecessary heartbeat. Most times, this is the point where she leaves him and completes her aftermath rituals alone elsewhere. Most nights, but not always.

"Thank you," she says, turning to face him as he backs away.

"Least I can do," again, because he can't think clearly right now.

"See you in the morning. Or if something out there hates us and the alarm goes off at three AM again."

The presence of her lingers long after she leaves. Rituals and routines, and one of these days, Flynn decides, one of these days he'll tell her how much all of that means.


	3. guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific content warning for vague suicidal thoughts.

He made his choices. That is both curse and salvation.

The starting-point tragedy was not at all his fault. Flynn at least keeps conscious of that much. But everything else, choices made out of desperation and a desire to burn it all down… he knew what he became every step of the way, damned himself before anyone else could say harsh words, made sure no one could hurt him more than he hurt himself.

He's drowning in it, and he deserves every moment.

Door closed but unlocked. He'll be left alone unless the alarms go off. It's a quiet day, or was when he last ventured out, and he's generally given his space. He could plausibly take his own life on a day like this and no one would notice or care as long as he did it quietly. Not a particularly tempting idea, but he _could_ , and it's good to know that just in case, and-

The door opens just enough to allow a small human body to slip in. He shouldn't be so surprised. Lucy has a very good sense of when she's wanted - not that he would ever say as much, but his heart still does something inhumanly fluttery as she closes the door behind her and leans back against the wall. Perhaps she too is drowning today, perhaps-

"You didn't come out when the smoke alarm went off," she says.

"I didn't hear it. Didn't know that _worked_." He has little faith in safety precautions, and with the herd of idiots he's stuck living with…

"I didn't either until Jiya set a loaf of bread on fire. I'm not sure how she did that, but… yeah."

Flynn can think of several ways the team mascot could easily screw up on that level, but he senses that commentary might not be appreciated right now. Instead - "Is she okay?"

"Yeah. Turns out we have a fire extinguisher as well, and she wasn't close, it just kinda… spontaneously lit up like a Christmas tree. Apparently that's a thing that happens."

It's a beautiful mental image, and he does wish he'd been present to make some affectionately sarcastic comments, but he feels like there's a little more going on than he's catching. "What do you actually want, Lucy?"

"Am I not allowed to check on you when no one's seen you in about a day?"

"You're the only person who _does_ check on me, so yes."

She sighs, in that ridiculous period-drama way where it takes a little effort to stay focused on her eyes, and gives him one of those you're-lucky-I-like-you looks she's starting to get really good at. "I care, okay? And I would've wandered out here a few hours ago, but the minor kitchen fire was kinda distracting. I do… I do worry about you, though."

"You don't need to."

Another dramatic sigh. "You could at least try to make that more convincing."

"I'm fine, Lucy."

"You look like roadkill. You're not fine."

"I am…"

"You're not gonna win," she mutters, shaking her head. "Let me care about you. Please."

He knows not to fight that, knows to keep his mouth shut and keep focused on her. Damn right he won't win. She always gets through his defenses. Today a little more intentional than usual, but-

"I don't need anything," she says before he gets to that question. "But I'd like to _not_ watch the fallout out there. Okay if I hide here for a bit?"

He nods, and she walks over and sits down on the edge of the bed like she always does.

"If you want to talk, I'm here."

He won't, he knows, but-

"Understood."


	4. sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than my usual, and a day late because life happened and my original idea for this prompt hit a wall so instead we get this.

She looks delicate, curled up on the couch in the middle of the night. The TV is still on in the background, volume low enough that it's no more than a lightshow, and Lucy seems to have been out for a while.

Flynn isn't sure why he felt compelled to take the long way across the bunker, to the extent that there _is_ a long way, or why he hasn't just decided to keep a bottle of painkillers in his room. Not that he'd use the damn things frequently enough, but for the principle of the beast. Making a statement about how he feels about being a caged animal stuck with people he doesn't actually like.

And one person he _does_ like, he thinks, leaning back against a wall.

He's not about to do anything stupid or creepy or god forbid both. There are boundaries, more than he consciously realizes, and he's not going to keep vigil out here all night or anything. He _could_ , might as well be sleepless out here instead of in his room, but he's starting to think he likes being alive and this might get awkward if not outright dangerous if anyone else turns out to have trouble sleeping.

But a few moments won't hurt anyone, and he needs the small comfort of knowing that the only living person he cares about is, for now, a little less of a disaster than she has been.

He's not sure how to say anything about what he's noticed over the last few days. The quietest implosion imaginable, likely begun long before it caught his eye, and there's no one to catch her. Whatever happened - he has not figured out the starting point of the damage, though he has a few loud suspicions that he is not pursuing because there will be bloodshed if he chases that rabbit - has damaged someone undeserving, and he…

He should go, before he gets lost in this.

He walks over, because he can, and drapes a blanket over her. Least he can do before going back to hide where he belongs.

Whenever she breaks, he'll catch her. But not yet.


	5. touch

She crashes into him out of desperation. She will justify all of this as she can, as her body recovers from things she can't name. Lucy is not generally an impulsive person, but she is exhausted more emotionally than physically right now and she needs something, anything to help her forward.

Who can blame her for taking the easiest option? Who can blame her for the choices everyone else in her small orbit thinks she's already made so many times?

Not as she could, she thinks as she collapses against him. Not as she's thought about far more than she should ever admit. Sex would be too easy, a violent act against both of them. Flynn would let her, she is sure of it, and he would be good enough to her, but they would both have regrets afterwards. She can't screw up what they have, what they might be becoming, for that kind of release.

But there are other ways to use another person, and she decides to take them as soon as they are behind a closed door.

Throwing herself at someone that much bigger than her, in as affectionate a way as possible, is more of a challenge than it ought to be. She wants to be dramatic and fails, and thankfully he has good reflexes, and-

This is everything. For once, the difference feels right. She is safe here, her body tucked into his, and how long she has waited, and-

"Don't start something we can't finish," he murmurs. One of his hands is on the small of her back, the other in her hair. It's kinda perfect.

"I'm not going to," she replies. "This is enough."

For now. Not always, and she'll find that strength in months to come, but for now.

She's a little less alone, her heart a little lighter, and that is enough.


	6. liquid

He's learning how to take care of her.

There's a caution to it, these things they do, the slow spirals towards a possible future that Flynn is still conflicted about. There is no need to rush anything here. Lucy is delicate - not quite in the way the rest of the world sees her, not like she'll break if one looks at her wrong, but still someone in need of careful handling.

If he'd ever admit it - and he won't, because that's a conversation for a few years from now when he gets to piece together some kind of Life After This - he is too.

So, nothing dramatic, but little things. As he can. Taking the things he notices and turning them into something better.

When she's working on something, when she goes deep into research mode for an entire day or sometimes even longer, she doesn't think about anything else. Not even the most basic things that would occur to someone with a little more self-preservation skills than she has.

He tried to call her out on it once, a couple weeks ago. Dumbest thing he's done in a _long_ time. He'd almost forgotten she can yell that loud - things had been going so well, and then he went and pointed out she hadn't eaten anything in two days because she was a little too preoccupied with other things, and… he had a point, he doesn't regret that, but he deserved her anger. He should've done better.

And now he does. He tries.

She's been curled up in the chair all morning, working her way through a book in absolute silence. She mentioned once that she prefers to do her research in his room because nobody will bother her, and he has to admit she's got a point there. Almost a year he's been stuck in this fishbowl and Lucy is _still_ the only person who's stuck so much as their head into his spaces. No, that's a bit of an understatement, she's slowly moving in and they're not having that convo and-

She looks peaceful. Lower body covered in an abomination of a blanket someone else found in a storage closet - the current safehouse had slightly more recent previous occupants than anywhere they've been before, there are a few weird things that have showed up here and there - and fully absorbed in her project. Honestly, the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing Flynn has seen in a long time.

He gets closer, sets another mug of tea on the small table next to her, and retreats back to his usual spot on the other side of the room.

They don't talk about this. They don't talk about a lot of important things. But when she looks up a few minutes later, puts her book down long enough to take a few sips, he knows she understands.


End file.
